Jeffrey Dean Morgan wants a Walking Dead movie focusing on Negan. The Walking Dead is a character driven show, so it's no surprise it has featured notable antagonists. The most popular of these is arguably Morgan's Negan, a character who debuted at the end of season 6 with a certain bravado.
Following Negan's introduction came the infamous baseball bat killings in The Walking Dead's season 7 premiere. Easily among the most brutal scenes of the series, Negan kills both Abraham and Glenn by beating them to death with Lucille, his barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat. The deaths of major characters are nothing new for The Walking Dead, but the gruesome way these characters are killed was particularly notable. Given that, it's hard to picture Negan getting a redemption arc, but that is exactly what's taken place over the course of seasons 9 and 10. Negan's redemption has been handled with great care, and with The Walking Dead receiving its first ever theatrical movie in the future, fans are pondering if Morgan could one day star in a Negan spinoff movie. In fact, back during Comic-Con in 2019, Morgan revealed there was a discussion about making a Negan-centric movie.
During The Walking Dead Universe's Family Hangout, a virtual gathering of several Walking Dead stars hosted by Yvette Nicole Brown, Jeffrey Dean Morgan discussed his interest in giving Negan a spinoff adventure, explaining how he wants to adapt the recent Negan Lives comic as well as the prequel, Here's Negan!.
"I'm very lucky to play him, because he's become so well-rounded, and this kind of redemption arc that he's been on has been very interesting to play. And I think the Negan Lives comic book kind of carries that on. It's a great little story, it's just a little slice of a day in the life of [Negan]. It's great, and I would love to. I always wanted to film that and then the prequel to Negan, there's a comic book for that as well. I'd love to do that."
Although Morgan acknowledges he doesn't know if it'll happen, he encourages Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman to continue writing the character, and "maybe we'll get to it eventually, because they're great." Negan Lives is a special one-shot comic taking place after Negan's exile. It would be interesting if the show's continuity adapted it, because it's hard to picture Negan being exiled after the Whisperer War in this version. Meanwhile, Here's Negan! details the character's backstory before the outbreak, and later how he formed the Saviors. Skybound, the Kirkman-founded company responsible for The Walking Dead, did indicate in 2018 that the TV show's producers were willing to delve into Negan's past.
There is certainly some great material for a Negan spinoff movie. Although there are no flashbacks to his backstory in the show, it is referenced. This is seen in season 8, when Negan confesses to Gabriel about being maritally unfaithful. Hopefully, fans will get to see Negan's backstory brought to life at some point as there's much it could help explain. For example, it could dig into the kind of person Negan was before the outbreak and the experiences that made him so cruel. For a number of fans, Negan is the best aspect of The Walking Dead, so a movie centering on his character could do well. The current plan is for the feature films to explain what's happened to Rick Grimes since his disappearance in season 9, but that doesn't rule out a Negan movie exploring the character's backstory from happening. As Morgan recently joked, The Walking Dead would be boring without Negan, so the chances the character continues to be a part of the universe are very good.
Source: The Walking Dead/YouTube